---
title: Devices
description: Run your agents on machines you already own — this Mac, the Mac mini on the desk, a VPS. Fyolo copies one binary there over SSH, sets up the agents, and the sessions keep running whether or not you’re attached.
---

Fyolo runs your agents on machines you already own: this Mac, the Mac mini on
the same desk, a VPS you pay for. There is no Fyolo cloud to provision from and
nothing to sign into — a machine is a machine Fyolo can `ssh` to.

Everything in the app files under one hierarchy:

```
Device        a machine you can reach, this Mac included
  └ Workspace   a named scope in the sidebar
      └ Project    a checkout on that machine
          └ Session   one real terminal
```

Each level belongs to exactly one level above it. That is what makes the machine
question answerable once, at the top, instead of being asked again for every
project and every pane. The level that answers it is the
[workspace](/docs/workspaces).

## Adding a machine

This Mac is a device like any other, and it’s the one you already have. Until
you add a second, the level stays out of your way — `New Terminal` and `Open
Project…` are plain verbs, because there is only one place they could mean.

Fyolo reads `~/.ssh/config` and never rewrites it behind your back. Anything
you can already `ssh` to is a machine Fyolo can reach:

- **File ▸ Connect to…** lists the aliases in your config that Fyolo hasn’t
  worked on yet. Connecting opens a terminal there.
- **Add Host…** appends a `Host` block for a box that isn’t in your config yet.
  Lead with the address; the name is what you’ll type after `ssh`. A key is the
  credential that works everywhere, including for the sessions running on the
  box. A password is saved to your Keychain, never to `ssh` config, and read
  only when `ssh` asks for it.

## Setting up a machine

Open **Settings ▸ Remote Hosts**, pick the machine, and press **Set Up**. Fyolo
copies the session host — `fyolod`, plus the `fyolo` CLI on Linux — into
`~/.local/bin` over SSH.
No root, no package manager, nothing to add to your shell profile. It then looks
for the agent CLIs installed there and writes Fyolo’s hooks and its agent skill
for each one, so an agent on a VPS reports **working**, **needs you**, and
**done** exactly the way a local one does.

The same button is the update, and the machine’s page reduces the whole chain to
one line — *Ready*, *Set up this host*, or *Update ready*. [Remote
hosts](/docs/remote-hosts) is the operating manual: testing the route, why a
password isn’t enough, what each rung installs, and how to repair one.

<Callout type="note" title="What Fyolo does not do">
  Fyolo never provisions a machine, never runs a control plane, and never
  routes your traffic. It shells out to the system `ssh`, with your
  `~/.ssh/config` and your keychain as the only authorities. Your code stays on
  hardware you control — which is the only trust story that survives giving an
  agent a shell on a private repo.
</Callout>

## Sessions live on the machine

Every session runs inside `fyolod` on the machine that owns it — including the
sessions on this Mac, which run in the local daemon. The app is a viewer that
attaches and detaches.

That’s why closing the window leaves everything running, and why a remote
session isn’t tied to the SSH connection that opened it: dropping the link
detaches you, it doesn’t kill the agent. Reattaching restores the screen.

Only **Close Session** (`⌘W`) ends a session on purpose. Quitting Fyolo detaches
instead, and the next launch reattaches.

## What reaches across

Once a machine is set up, the panes that read a project read it on the machine
the project is on:

- **Files** — browse the checkout, open a file, and save it back to the machine
  it was read from.
- **Search** — search a checkout on the machine, follow its `cd`, and open what
  the search found.
- **Changes, Compare, History** — the git pane reads that machine’s repository,
  and stays as read-only there as it is here.
- **Agents** — the same manifests, hooks, and skill, installed on the box.
  Where an agent’s CLI lives is a fact about one machine, so it’s answered on
  that machine’s own page under **Remote Hosts** rather than on a page about
  agents.
- **Paste an image** into an agent running on the machine and Fyolo carries the
  file across.

Sessions started outside Fyolo show up by themselves — `ssh` in, launch
something with `fyolod`, and the sidebar files it as an ordinary session. The
machine’s own roster is the source, so nothing running on the box goes missing.

<Cards>
  <Card href="/docs/remote-hosts" title="Remote hosts">
    Adding a host, testing the route, and reading the one line that says ready.
  </Card>
  <Card href="/docs/workspaces" title="Workspaces">
    The scope that decides which machine a project opens on.
  </Card>
  <Card href="/docs/session-control" title="Session control & the CLI">
    The hooks that make status honest, on this Mac and on every machine.
  </Card>
  <Card href="/docs/iphone" title="The iOS app">
    Pair the phone with a machine and reach its sessions from anywhere.
  </Card>
</Cards>